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Enlarge ImageRequest to buy this photoJohn Minchillo | Associated PressDemonstrators in the Staten Island borough of New York protest the deaths of Eric Garner by a police chokehold in New York City and of Michael Brown by a police shooting in Ferguson, Mo.

NEW YORK — The Rev. Al Sharpton led thousands of chanting but peaceful activists in a march
across Staten Island yesterday to protest the death of Eric Garner, who died after New York City
police put him in a banned chokehold last month.

Protesters traveled by bus and ferry to join the rally.

The killing of Garner, a 43-year-old black father of six, has become part of a larger national
debate about how U.S. police use force, particularly on people who are not white.

“We are not here to cause riots. We are here because violence was caused,” Sharpton said to a
crowd of cheering supporters who filled streets

in the borough where Garner died.

Sharpton was joined by former New York Gov. David Patterson, other civil-rights leaders and
Garner’s widow, Esaw.

“Let’s make this a peaceful march and get justice for my husband so that this doesn’t happen to
anybody else,” Esaw Garner said in a somber tone to protesters.

Sharpton said the demonstration also was in response to the death of Michael Brown, an unarmed
18-year-old African-American who was shot dead by a white police officer this month in Ferguson,
Mo., sparking more than a week of violent confrontations.

Protesters carried signs demanding justice for Garner and Brown and shouted slogans including, “
Hands up, don’t shoot!” They began yesterday’s march just after noon, walking past the district
attorney’s office, and ending a few blocks from the terminal for ferries to Manhattan.

Dawn Edwards, a human-resource executive from Brooklyn, said she chose to march out of fear that
negative stereotypes will have an impact on her two young sons as they grew older.

“I hope when my boys grow up to become men, those stereotypes will no longer exist,” she
said.

Michelle Johnson, a 34-year-old pharmacist from Long Island, said her sons also had inspired her
to join the march.

“It’s a sobering lesson for a mother to tell her child that your country doesn’t judge you
simply on your character but on the color of your skin,” Johnson said.

New York Police Department officers lined blocked streets near the march. Still, police said no
arrests were made by the time the rally wound down in the late afternoon, and some officers handed
bottles of water to protesters.

A New York City prosecutor plans to present evidence to a grand jury next month to determine
whether anyone should be criminally charged in Garner’s death.

The city’s medical examiner ruled the death a homicide, saying police officers killed him by
compressing his neck and chest as they restrained him for selling loose cigarettes. His health
problems, including asthma and obesity, were contributing factors, the medical examiner said.